Abraham Kuyper likely would have found the political discord of his time similar to the modern-day rancor that reduces some evangelicals to finger-pointing polarization, said Stephen Grabill, director of a Grand Rapids, Michigan Christian think tank.

The ecumenically minded Dutch politician, journalist and theologian who wrote his persuasive three-volume treatise, “Common Grace” before his death in 1920, dedicated much of his life to fanning a theology that warned Reformed-minded Christians not to develop a “siege mentality” as they sought to weave their influence in business, education and government.

The lessons in “Grace” remain relevant today and are the reason why the free market think tank, the Acton Institute, and Kuyper College, both of Grand Rapids, are collaborating to translate Kuyper’s work from Dutch to English, said Grabill, director of programs at the Acton Institute, who is overseeing the two-year translation project.

“In terms of the way Christians have brought their faith into the public sphere in the last 30 years, Kuyper represents a much more thoughtful and reflective way of building a constructive public theology,” Grabill said.

“He wasn’t a policy wonk but an idea guy who sought to synthesize a lot of movement and point to various economic political trends that integrated the Christian faith and did it in a way that didn’t politicize the faith, which is a breath of fresh air to people today.”

Rimmer de Vries, born in the Netherlands in 1929, who served as chief economist and managing director at J.P. Morgan from 1961 to 1995, was a “major force” in getting the Acton Institute and Kuyper College to collaborate in translating Kuyper’s writings, Grabill said.

John Bolt, professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, is the project’s theological adviser. Nelson Kloosterman, of Worldview Resources International, will oversee the texts’ translation.

The issues Kuyper fought against in his day included the expansion of Marxism, socialism and minimal government interaction with the Netherlands’ citizens, known as libertarianism.

He advocated equal financing for Catholic, Protestant and public schools, founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and served as the Netherlands’ prime minister from 1901-05.

“His Anti-Revolutionary Party changed the face of politics for the average Dutch Christian entering political life in an ecumenical way,” Grabill said.

As a journalist, Kuyper wrote over a six-year period a collection of newspaper editorials geared for the general public that eventually became the three-volume “Common Grace.”

Kuyper’s writings were not intended for scholars, Grabill said, and so when English translations are released for the public to read, they’ll be geared for a broader evangelical audience including pastors, small group church leaders, lay Christians and seminary professors.

Grabill said he hopes the translation will provide evangelicals with a coherent social philosophy to guide their agendas in a way he believes is lacking today.

“I think Kuyper would say both the left and the right have polarized the gospel in ways that may have been unintentional in the beginning of the process,” Grabill said.

“They need a better understanding of culture, and what Kuyper does is he provides the foundational theological and philosophical thought to understand culture in a way that’s constructive and not ideological, and merely an attempt to change it to a different end.”

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